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CLASSICAL MUSIC AND DANCE GUIDE

Here is a selective listing by critics of The Times of new or noteworthy opera, classical music and dance events this weekend in the New York metropolitan region.

Opera

''DON GIOVANNI,'' New York City Opera. The 1989 Harold Prince production of Mozart's ''Don Giovanni'' has returned to the City Opera, and though there are some effective touches in the staging and acting, the grim sets and unattractive costumes by Rolf Langenfass make this tragi-comedy seem too bleakly tragic. Victor Benedetti is an agile, pleasant-voiced but uncharismatic Don; Sanford Sylvan is an elegant and amusing Leporello. Virginia Grasso as Donna Anna and Cassandra Riddle as Donna Elvira are effective. But Christine Abraham's Zerlina and especially Marcel Reijans's Ottavio are too modest-voiced for the house's dry acoustics. Christopher Larkin conducts. Sunday at 1:30 P.M., New York State Theater, (212) 870-5570. Tickets: $20 to $90 (Anthony Tommasini).

''GIULIO CESARE,'' Metropolitan Opera. The Met rarely dabbles in the increasingly popular field of Baroque opera for a variety of reasons, not least the fact that the vast size of the house normally militates against it. Still, the company's staging of Handel's ''Giulio Cesare,'' in a production borrowed from the English National Opera, was a triumph when this tale of Roman and Egyptian political and romantic intrigue was first (and last) seen, a decade ago. The revival cast looks promising: Jennifer Larmore is Caesar, Sylvia McNair is Cleopatra, and two of the best countertenors singing today, David Daniels and Brian Asawa, are Sesto and Tolomeo. John Nelson conducts. Tomorrow at 8 P.M., Metropolitan Opera House, (212) 362-6000. Tickets: $26 to $160; sold out, but returns and standing room tickets may be available (Allan Kozinn).

''L'HEURE ESPAGNOLE'' and ''L'ENFANT ET LES SORTILEGES,'' New York City Opera. Ravel's two semiprecious jewels for the stage are put together in a double bill. Maurice Sendak is the ever fanciful designer. Frank Corsaro directs. Kurt Ollmann and Amy Burton head an attractive cast. Tomorrow at 1:30 P.M., New York State Theater, (212) 870-5570. Tickets: $20 to $90 (Bernard Holland).

''THE MAGIC FLUTE,'' Amato Opera. This enterprising company presents Mozart's ''Magic Flute'' in English this weekend, and this mystical operatic fairy tale should benefit by being presented in the company's intimate East Village theater. The music and stage direction will be by Anthony Amato. Tomorrow at 7:30 P.M. and Sunday at 2:30 P.M., Amato Opera, 319 Bowery, corner of Second Street, (212) 228-8200. Tickets: $23; $20 for children and the elderly (Tommasini).

METROPOLITAN OPERA NATIONAL COUNCIL AUDITIONS. The Met's national auditions have uncovered some major talents over the years. The winners of this season's audition will perform in a grand finals concert at the Met on Sunday afternoon, with the orchestra conducted by Edoardo Muller. It is always fascinating to hear the talented young artists in this high-profile, high-pressure event. The teaser that the Met's publicity department put out for this event is: ''Discover the stars of the future today.'' But that really does happen. Sunday at 3 P.M., Metropolitan Opera House, (212) 362-6000. Tickets: $20 to $75 (Tommasini).

''THE QUEEN OF SPADES,'' Metropolitan Opera. Tchaikovsky's great opera daringly mingles the surreal creepiness in the story of Ghermann, an army engineer obsessed with gambling, with the stock formality of the 18th-century aristocratic Russian backdrop. Elijah Moshinsky's striking production for the Met, introduced in 1995, powerfully captures both aspects of the opera. Valery Gergiev conducts a musically authoritative and dramatically compelling performance. The cast is strong, with Galina Gorchakova, Olga Borodina, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and, in his first Russian role, the tireless Placido Domingo, who hurls himself thrillingly into the part of Ghermann. Tomorrow at 1:30 P.M., Metropolitan Opera House, (212) 362-6000. Tickets: $25 to $210; sold out, but returns may be available (Tommasini).

''SUSANNAH,'' Metropolitan Opera. Carlisle Floyd's down-home American opera feels uncomfortably small and modest in a big space like the Met's, but there are lyrical charms that make this piece endure. And the cast is first rate, with Renee Fleming, Samuel Ramey and Jerry Hadley. James Conlon conducts. Tonight at 8, Metropolitan Opera House, (212) 362-6000. Tickets: $25 to $210 (Holland).

Classical Music

KATHLEEN BATTLE. Ms. Battle's presence in New York has been diminished since her row with the Met a few years ago. But the American soprano returns in recital accompanied by the ever elegant Martin Katz. There will be excerpts from Handel's ''Theodora,'' Mozart's ''Dans un Bois Solitaire,'' songs by Richard Strauss and more. Sunday at 2 P.M., Carnegie Hall, Tickets: $18 to $70; only partial-view seats available for $30 to $40 (Holland).

BEAUX-ARTS TRIO. A venerable group has reconsituted itself yet again this season, with the original pianist, Menahem Pressler, now joined by Young Uck Kim, violinist, and Antonio Meneses, cellist. Reports on the first concert in December suggested that the fresh partnership left room for improvement. It will be put to the test again here in works by Dvorak, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich. Tonight and tomorrow at 8, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue and 82d Street, (212) 570-3949. Tickets: $30 (James R. Oestreich).

IAN BOSTRIDGE. This English tenor is a somewhat controversial but intensely interesting artist. His voice is not large but is unusually distinctive. He can sing with sweet-toned, choirboy purity or earthy expressivity. Some people find his interpretive ideas to be mannered. But it is hard not to be affected by the urgency, literate intelligence and palpable involvement he brings to this singing. His program this weekend will offer songs by Schubert and Wolf, with Julius Drake at the piano. Sunday at 2 P.M., Alice Tully Hall, (212) 721-6500. Tickets: $32 (Tommasini).

ALFRED BRENDEL. With this all-Mozart program, the poet-philosopher of the piano begins a seven-concert series that is to include solo works, chamber performances, concertos, piano duos and vocal music, as well as readings of his own poems. The program includes the Piano Quartets in G minor (K. 478) and E flat (K. 493) and the Piano Concerto No. 12 in A (K. 414). Mr. Brendel's collaborators include his son Adrian, a cellist; Katharine Gowers and Lucy Jeal, violinists, and Douglas Paterson, a violist. Tonight at 7:30, Carnegie Hall, (212) 247-7800. Tickets: $16 to $60 (Kozinn).

CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER. Before he founded the Chamber Music Society, Charles Wadsworth had a flourishing career as an accompanist for singers, and one of his accomplishments during the 20 years he directed the society was to make sure that vocal chamber music was given a fair share of the spotlight. Mr. Wadsworth returns to his old stamping ground this weekend to play piano and harpsichord in a concert devoted largely to that specialty. Two fine singers -- Frances Lucey, soprano, and Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano -- join the society to sing works by Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Mozart, Saint-Saens, Chausson and Scarlatti. Also included are a Mozart Flute Quartet and a Berg Adagio. Tonight at 8 and Sunday at 5 P.M., Alice Tully Hall, (212) 875-5788. Tickets: $25 to $35 (Kozinn).

CONTINUUM. Paul Schoenfield, the subject of this enterprising ensemble's final retrospective of the season, writes music that is eclectic, virtuosic, sometimes bristling with spirited good humor and sometimes painfully serious. Continuum's program has a bit of everything: ''Sparks of Glory,'' for narrator, clarinet, piano and cello, draws on Holocaust narratives, but the contrastingly light-spirited ''Three Country Fiddle Pieces'' and ''Boogie'' dabble pleasingly in the cloudy border ground between bluegrass, jazz and formal concert music. Tomorrow night at 8:30, Merkin Concert Hall, 129 West 67th Street, (212) 501-3330. Tickets: $12.50; $6 for students and the elderly (Kozinn).

GUILLEMETTE LAURENS. This French mezzo-soprano's recordings with Les Arts Florissants and her performances in New York -- in the Theatre National de l'Opera de Paris production of Lully's ''Atys'' and as a soloist with Capriccio Stravagante, for example -- have shown her to be a particularly communicative interpreter of the Baroque vocal repertory. The Frick's comfortably intimate music room should suit both Ms. Laurens and her program, which includes works by Lully, Caccini, Rosi, Clerambault and Monteverdi. She is to be accompanied on the lute by Luca Pianca. Sunday at 5 P.M., Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, (212) 288-0700. All tickets to the concert, which is free, have been distributed, but a waiting line for returned tickets will form one hour before the performance (Kozinn).

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC. Reports were mixed when Kurt Masur and the Philharmonic collaborated with Ornette Coleman at the Lincoln Center Festival two years ago. Now Mr. Masur and the orchestra work for the first time with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center, celebrating the centenary of Duke Ellington. Mr. Masur has in any case proved himself a master of Grieg's ''Peer Gynt,'' and the orchestra will perform a suite from the work alongside arrangements by Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Today at 2 P.M.; tomorrow at 8 P.M.; Avery Fisher Hall, (212) 721-6500. Tickets: today, $20 to $70; tomorrow, $23 to $88 (Oestreich).

PHANTASM. This excellent viol consort gives in to the surroundings of the French Institute in a program consisting largely of French music, with works by Claude Le Jeune, Francois Roberday and Eustache du Caurroy as well as Josquin and Byrd. Not so much, however, that it fails to indulge its recent specialty, with selections from Bach's ''Art of Fugue.'' Phantasm's excellent new recording of much of that work on Simax bodes well for this part of the program and undoubtedly the rest, too. Tomorrow at 8 P.M., Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, (212) 355-6160. Tickets: $20; $15 for students (Oestreich).

SALZBURG MOZARTEUM. This fine orchestra from its namesake's hometown, though born 50 years after the composer's death, fancies itself a repository of Mozartean tradition. The program here should tell some tales, with Hubert Soudant conducting a substantial program of nothing but Mozart: the ''Nozze di Figaro'' Overture and Symphony No. 40; Piano Concerto No. 22, with Till Fellner as soloist, and two concert arias, sung by Katharine Goeldner, a mezzo-soprano. Sunday at 2 P.M., Avery Fisher Hall, (212) 721-6500. Tickets: $15 to $35; $10 for students and the elderly, subject to availability (Oestreich).

JANOS STARKER. At 74, this cellist remains mightily impressive, as he showed recently in a program of Beethoven and, a year before that, in one of Bach. Here he plays a mix of sonatas by Central European composers. Brahms is familiar, of course, as is Chopin, if not necessarily for the work here. But it should be especially fascinating to hear what Mr. Starker makes of the music of his Hungarian compatriot Erno Dohnanyi. Sunday at 2 P.M., LeFrak Concert Hall, Queens College, Kissena Boulevard and the Long Island Expressway, Flushing, Queens, (718) 793-8080. Tickets: $26; $24 for students and the elderly (Oestreich).

Dance

BALLET TECH. Eliot Feld's bright company offers several programs of diverse works from its repertory, as well as several premieres ranging in scale from ''Cherokee Rose,'' a solo, and ''Mending,'' a duet, to ''Felix: The Ballet,'' a full-company piece to music by Mendelssohn. There are also two new productions in the Kids Dance matinee series: Mr. Feld's ''Apple Pie,'' to bluegrass music, and George Balanchine's ''Tarantella,'' a rousing virtuosic pas de deux. Tonight at 8; tomorrow at 2 (Kids Dance) and 8 P.M.; Sunday at 2 (Kids Dance) and 7:30 P.M., Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, Chelsea, (212) 242-0800. Tickets: $35, evenings; $25 (adults) and $15 (children under 12), Kids Dance matinees (Jack Anderson).

DANCE THEATER OF HARLEM. The Young Hoofers are back by popular acclaim in this month's Dance Theater of Harlem Open House, along with dancers from the company and its school and several surprise guest singers. Sunday at 3 P.M., Dance Theater of Harlem, 466 West 152d Street, between Amsterdam and St. Nicholas Avenues, (212) 690-2800. Tickets: $6; $2 for adults over 55 and children 12 and under (Dunning).

DANCES. . . PATRELLE. A ballet choreographer with an unusual fondness for narrative, Francis Patrelle, has come up this time with ''Madame X,'' based on the love story and scandal behind the John Singer Sargent painting of the same name. The cast includes Gen Horiuchi, formerly of the New York City Ballet. Tonight and tomorrow night at 8 and Sunday at 2 P.M., Kaye Playhouse, 68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, (212) 772-4448. Tickets: $20 to $35. The company will also present a children's matinee program of other ballets tomorrow afternoon at 2 (Dunning).

DOUG ELKINS DANCE COMPANY. Doug Elkins, a choreographer who can be gleefully eclectic and theatrically surprising, has filled ''Of Don Juan and Dying Swans'' with both gentle embraces and martial-arts-inspired kicks and chops. And the dancers in this new production portray figures from romantic novels and famous ballets, as well as people who might turn up on talk shows. Tonight and tomorrow night at 8 and Sunday at 3 P.M., Dance Theater Workshop, 219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, (212) 924-0077. Tickets: $15 (Anderson).

THE GYPSY CARAVAN. More than 30 musicians and dancers will perform in a display of Roma (Gypsy) traditional culture. Featured performers are Musafir from Rajasthan; the Kolpakov Trio from Russia; the Bulgarian Yuri Yunakov Ensemble; Taraf de Haidouks from Romania; Kalyi Jag from Hungary and members of Antonio El Pipa's Flamenco Ensemble from Spain, including Antonio (El Pipa) Rios Fernandez and his full-throated aunt, Juana. Tonight and tomorrow night at 8, City Center, West 55th Street between Seventh Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas, (212) 545-7536. Tickets: $30 to $45 (Dunning).

ELEO POMARE DANCE COMPANY. A rare chance to see the work of a rare choreographer, Eleo Pomare, who makes dances that throb with age-old emotions felt freshly. The company will perform his ''Yerma,'' based on the Lorca play. Sunday at 3 P.M., 92d Street Y, 92d Street and Lexington Avenue, (212) 415-5698 or 415-5440. Tickets: $8 (Dunning).

PILAR RIOJA. This great Spanish dancer offers a program inspired by the imagistically rich and passionate poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, who was born a hundred years ago. Her performances are part of a Lorca centennial tribute by Repertorio Espanol, and actors from that troupe will recite excerpts from an essay by Garcia Lorca on creative inspiration and the performing arts. Today at 11 A.M. and 8 P.M.; tomorrow night at 8; Sunday at 2 P.M., Gramercy Arts Theater, 138 East 27th Street, (212) 889-2850. Tickets: $35, $25 (Anderson).

SHADES BETWEEN MEMORIES. Chrissy Chu, one of the five female choreographers who make up Shades Between Memories, describes this program of work by herself and Janneta Abunda, Nichole Colbert, Laura Ortman and Margot Mink Colbert as striving to be ''short and sweet, not boring, and most of all touching.'' What more could one ask for? Tomorrow night at 8 and Sunday at 6 P.M., Context Dance Studio, 28 Avenue A, between Second and Third Streets, East Village, (212) 501-6104. Tickets: $10; $8 students and the elderly (Dunning).

SWENGLISH DANCE. Petter Jacobsson, formerly with the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, and Tom Caley, that luminescent Merce Cunningham dancer, team up for an evening of their own choreography, which they will perform with Meg Harper, Cheryl Therrien and Lisa Osberg. Tonight at 9 and Sunday night at 8, Cunningham Dance Studio, 55 Bethune Street, west of Washington Street, West Village, (212) 691-9751, extension 30. Tickets: $8 (Dunning).

TROIKA RANCH. In its new ''Vera's Body,'' created by Dawn Stoppielllo and Mark Coniglio, Troika Ranch will explore the life of a woman torn between experiencing the world through the body and through the mind. An early explorer of electronically mediated dance, the company works with sensory devices built into costumes and sets. Dancers cue the music as they pass through light beams. A paper doll emits sampled sounds. And a miniature video camera and transmitter become intimate partners in a dance. Tonight, and tomorrow and Sunday nights at 8, Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street, just south of Houston Street, (212) 334-7479. Tickets: $12 (Dunning).

CATHY WEIS. Video monitors often fly, roll and dance with the performers in Cathy Weis's pieces. Her new ''Lizards, Monitors'' continues an exploration of movement as a response to electronic imagery. Friday and Saturday nights through April 24 at 8, Dixon Place, 258 Bowery, just south of Houston Street, Lower East Side, (212) 219-3088. Tickets: $12; $8 for students and the elderly; Theater Development Fund vouchers accepted (Dunning).